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What the Media Aren’t Telling You About Climate Change

Daily Media Review cuts through the headlines and scare stories to point out some of the key fallacies and failed assumptions relied upon by the climate change scare industry.

The mainstream media love to lecture us daily about the coming apocalypse as a result of catastrophic climate change, but are we being told the complete story?

There is little doubt amongst the scientific community about the warming effect of CO2, both those who accept and those who reject the climate change hypothesis agree on this undisputed fact, they even agree as to how much CO2 is capable of warming. But according to the International Panel on Climate Change, CO2 only accounts for half of the expected warming in the computer models. The assumption is that the rising temperature attributable to CO2 will result in increased atmospheric water vapour as a result of evaporation, which will further amplify the warming of CO2. The IPCC believes that the positive feedback from increased water vapour will double the effects of any temperature increase attributable to CO2.

‘Under such a response, for uniform warming, the largest fractional change in water vapour, and thus the largest contribution to the feedback, occurs in the upper troposphere. In addition, GCMs find enhanced warming in the tropical upper troposphere, due to changes in the lapse rate (see Section 9.4.4).’

In summary, the IPCC states that positive feedback from water vapour accounts for half of the warming in their computer models, and that this should manifest itself in the form of the mid/upper troposphere warming at a faster rate than the lower troposphere/surface.

The IPCC made a prediction in their AR4 that was supposed to account for 50% of the warming, and this prediction has been empirically falsified by the empirical scientific data from all temperature records in their subsequent AR5 report. Without the upper troposphere warming at a faster rate than the lower troposphere there is no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour.

No tropospheric hotspot = no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour = no anthropogenic global warming (well, nothing to worry about anyway). There have been claims that there is missing heat hiding in the oceans, but if this is true that makes the case for positive feedback from water vapour even weaker. So even if it has warmed over the last 18 years, it certainly isn’t as a result of our CO2 output.

So where did all the extra evaporation go when it was warming prior to the current 18 year warming ‘hiatus’, and why hasn’t it been amplifying as predicted? The IPCC have recorded slightly higher rates of precipitation over the years which suggests that, although there is increased water vapour, it has manifested in the form of lower level cloud cover and rain. Lower level water vapour is thought to have a negative or neutral feedback (i.e. cooling effect), as clouds tend to reflect the radiation back into space, and they release any stored heat when it rains.

But what about the ‘97% of scientists’ who believe in global warming?

As far as I know 100% of scientists believe in global warming and that CO2 contributes towards it, including those sceptical of anthropogenic global warming. What they don’t agree on is what happens after CO2 warms the planet, i.e. water vapour, clouds, feedbacks, etc. – that is the real debate in climate science, not that you’d ever know about it reading the stories in the mainstream media.

So, if a vital 50% of the anthropogenic global warming theory has failed a major empirical test, why does the media neglect to mention it?

There are several possibilities:

They only read the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers, which is written by politicians who negotiate every word, and avoid the actual science that is in the Working Group I section.

They’re incapable of understanding the science so just accept what they’re told by others.

They’re environmental activists masquerading as journalists, and are too busy pushing an agenda to report the truth.

It’s too difficult to report science in a form that the general populace can understand.

They need dramatic headlines to sell papers, and they’re told what to write by their editors as a result.

I personally think it’s often a combination of all five, although I have to say that amongst certain ‘ journalists’ some points are more relevant than others (to put it politely).

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Surely some of the heat is released when the cloud droplets are formed? As I understand the system in very basic terms, water vapour condenses to form water droplets releasing latent heat. The droplets increase in size by various mechanisms, eventually reaching a mass where gravity becomes the predominant force and they fall to the ground. So any cloud will have released a large proportion of latent heat whether or not it rains?

‘No tropospheric hotspot = no evidence of positive feedback from water vapour = no anthropogenic global warming (well, nothing to worry about anyway). There have been claims that there is missing heat hiding in the oceans, but if this is true that makes the case for positive feedback from water vapour even weaker. So even if it has warmed over the last 18 years, it certainly isn’t as a result of our CO2 output.’

It has barely warmed, in contradiction of almost all climate models – which all rely on the IPCC’s CO2 theory. Something is radically wrong with those theories, but they won’t admit it and even claim everything is OK with them.

Why does the mainstream media choose to ignore or play down the obvious?

The amount of water vapor determines the force of the wind over the oceans over the equator. Wind also carries water vapor over continents, making the surface less hot. The accumulation of water vapor over the oceans leads to a cooling of the oceans.

Excellent analysis. The commitment to skeptical, investigative science on tallbloke is beautiful to behold every morning.

At the same time, “this” — what the media are not telling you — is not simply about belief. It is about political control. I have been hoping that intelligent, investigative journalist bloggers — like tallbloke — would always interpret “media” or “mass media” by naming the owners who are acting in accord with the plans of one party and hiring only puppets to do their bidding. These owners are not fulfilling their responsibilities in modern western, developed societies of the Fourth Estate; they are not ferreting out truths (while, at the same time, they might hold editorial opinions); they are not hiring investigative journalists; they probably have developed as crony corporations and are afraid their efforts will bring them no profits, no productivity. So they continue to suck government teat. They belong to authoritarian or totalitarian control and should be held responsible for their actions.

IMHO, it is that calling a heat flow to space process via water vapor a positive feedback that is exactly wrong. It is a heat dumping process. Water takes heat to the tropopause and dumps it. Then hurricane force winds whisk it toward the poles and radiate it to space.

The shortfall when it comes to climate is the inability to intergrade all the various factors that are involved when it comes to the climate that will not result in a given item (the sun) changing in a given way resulting in an x climate outcome. Somehow in the climate arena there is this opinion that an x change in solar variability has to immediately translate to an x change climatic response. In addition lag times need to be incorporated into the equation.

I will add, climate regime change, and natural variation of the climate within a climatic regime are entirely two different things. What throws people off is the natural climatic variations within a particular climatic regime. This is what obscures the solar climate connection.
In addition I will go so far to say the climate can not change into another climatic regime without the aid of solar variability but that does not mean it can not fluctuate within a given climate regime. connection.

I feel it is these four factors (Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Variability ,Geo Magnetic Field Strength ,Land/Ocean Arrangements/Ice Dynamic ) which govern the climate of the earth and give it a beat of 1500 years or so but never in some regular fashion ,that again being due to what I said in the above and what follows.

The factors that govern the big picture when it comes to the climate are Milankovitch Cycles, Solar Variability, and these last three, the Geo Magnetic Field Strength of the Earth , Land /Ocean Arrangements/ Ice Dynamic those last three (geo magnetic field, land/ocean arrangements/ice dynamic) determining how effective Milankovitch Cycles and Solar Variability will be when it comes to impacting the climate.

This explains why the cycle is there but it varies so much over time.

In addition the evidence is mounting that the climate changes in sync in both hemispheres which eliminates a redistribution of energy within the climatic system for the reason why the climate changes ,which is on weak grounds to begin with ,and strengthens the fact that it is only changes in the total energy coming into the climatic system that can change it enough to bring it into another climate regime.

Further I maintain that all Intrinsic Earth Bound climatic factors are limited as to how much they can change the climate due to the total amount of energy in the climatic system they have to work with. Hence, they have the ability to change the climate within a climate regime( maybe plus or minus 1c) but they can not bring the climate from one regime to another regime. They refine the climate.

Then finally one has to allow for the rogue asteroid impact or maybe super nova explosion some where off in space that at times had a big impact on the climate system which would further obscure or even eliminate at times the 1500 year semi cyclic climatic cycle.

E.M.Smith says:
Thanks for the links, I’ll read them in more detail later this evening. I was really trying to pinpoint when the latent heat of vapourisation was returned to the climate system. To my mind the majority is during the cloud formation process which may at a different time and place to where it rains. Not that that makes much difference in totality.

Your Spherical Heat Pipe, the only link I’ve looked at, reminds me of something from way back in the 60s, a water cooled fridge. Basically an insulated box with a reservoir of water on the top. Evapouration cooled the interior. As we had no electricity my father considered buying one, but as we had a spring fed stream just outside the house which rarely went above 8’C even in the hottest summer, storing of perishables was in watertight containers in the stream.

Abstract
Stratospheric water vapor concentrations decreased by about 10% after the year 2000. Here we show that this acted to slow the rate of increase in global surface temperature over 2000–2009 by about 25% compared to that which would have occurred due only to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. More limited data suggest that stratospheric water vapor probably increased between 1980 and 2000, which would have enhanced the decadal rate of surface warming during the 1990s by about 30% as compared to estimates neglecting this change. These findings show that stratospheric water vapor is an important driver of decadal global surface climate change.

IF you knew anything about water you would see the IPCC predictions as silly and incompetent. Here’s why: It takes one BTU to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit, btw – the definition of British Thermal Unit. However, it takes 970 BTUs to change one pound of liquid water into one pound of vapor. Do you get it now?

When water evaporates, there is NO temperature change from liquid to vapor even though 970 BTUs has been transferred. Heat movement through the atmosphere can not be measured with a thermometer. Only an idiot thinks that they can measure heat with a thermometer. Heat is measured in BTU/# called enthalpy. This is made even more ridiculous by the fact these morons are claiming a positive feedback from WATER VAPOR. There can be no positive feedback measured by temperature since the change of state moves heat and actually causes a cooling of the remaining liquid water due to the evaporation.

Example: If you have one thousand pounds of water at 100 F and you evaporate one pound of that water, 970 BTUs were required to perform the change of state for the one pound of water. The heat to evaporate that water came from somewhere. Either it came from the sun or from the body of water. IF it solely came from the sun, then the temperature of the remaining water stays the same for the remaining 999 pounds of water. However, if the heat only came from the body of remaining water to evaporate that one pound, then the temperature of the remaining water will drop approximately one degree to 99 F. This is the basic function of a cooling tower in cooling systems. In other words, any heat that in the atmosphere is transferred will cause a temperature drop, a negative feedback of the remaining water. And where does the heat go to? Back into space via radiation which is called the Black Body effect.